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IDOCs » TAB days Grenoble
IDOC on a contemporary dance(?) workshop within the framework of LEAP-TAB at La Pacifique, Grenoble.
2015.09.18

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In 2015 spring time I was lucky to work four days at La Pacifique, Grenoble within the framework of LEAP-TAB. 

I was asked to offer an easy and accessible although a challenging programme that combines training work, improvisation and contact improvisation. A bit of everything. Since many years I work also as a teacher on these fields therefore I thought I can make up something convenient.

This is what I proposed:

descriptions of the class:

My contemporary dance class is inspired of different sources varying from modern and contemporary techniques to martial arts and contact dance. The class is structured along floor work, walking, running and "flying" patterns to create a flow of movements with the intention of finding the body's natural moving habits, and to raise a fine coordination that acts in all the directions of the space.

I follow three basic ideas when I build material for the exercises: 
First I want to understand the relation to my physical environment, basically how does gravity works on my body. Falling, recovering, rebouncing, suspending, balancing, supporting, grounding.
Second I explore the body as a unit and the body as a collection or unity of (body) parts. How these are relate and function and what are the possibilities of coordination that leans on those body perspective. 
And the third is how the anatomical directions relate to the directions and planes of the space, utilizing body mechanism in order to organise body and movement to achieve a safer and efficient ground for the dance. 
Since many years I give contact dance classes too, naturally the two fields are in interaction in me. 
Lately I try to involve the experience of space of contact dance in my training work. In contact with my partner I can simply get into places and positions where alone I wouldn't dare or be able to get. In line with the training material I include some partnering work and improvisation to explore and expand skills for accomodate the body in old and new places. 

 

Life and circumstances: 
 
The workshop was held in the open class programme of the studio. That means that I had each day a variety of people and people with different background on the classes. For example Nicolas Hubert and his dancers whos were on a residency making their new creation in the other studio they also took the classes (with the permission of the people whos attended the workshop from outside) but only the half of it because of their reherseals. That made a kind of special stucture for the class or we could say there were almost two classes a day. We enjoyed to work together with the members of the company and took adventage of the larger group and took courage and inspiration for improvisational work and experimenting with contact dance. From these explorations we shifted into the training wich has another approach to build skills and technique. But the two parts were organically intreacting and contextualizing a broader view of contemporary dance training.
 
In this document I give a description of the work we did in the first half of the workshops. They addressed awerness work, alignement work, body- space coordination,  improvisation, making contact.
 
 

day1.
 
 
rolling accross the room
 
tuning into body and space
 
- one takes a simple and soft roll
 
 
working in lines, from wall to wall
 
 
look for the cycle of make comfort, finding support, pushing the floor away, falling back to ground
 
see how your limbs takes part of this process (they act as support, like an ascesoir serving pushing and reciveing)
 
 
-what happens when you extend and or fold in the extremes, what are your arms and legs are doing?
 
 
few rounds, working on each side
 
 
-same task adding: change side any time you want, making a vareity on your journey
 
use the push to help manouvering from side to side
 
 
- bring it up
 
as you roll and cahngeing the sides use the possibility to come up, sit up, etc., geting into other places as coming off the ground
 
 
- engage the two end of your spine, head and the whole pelvis can work as extensions of the central body, use them as limbs, reach and land with them
 
 
- bring it higher
 
you can even come to standing as you travel, but don't forget the floor, still use it, "roller-coster" 
 
 
following-relating
 
space of the mover
 
 
-working in couples, one is rolling as before, the other is following, wittnessing
 
 
two- three couples working on paralell tracks
 
change rolls each turn
 
 
relate to your partner by walking/being around, wittness your partners journey 
 
 
-viewer becomes a toucher
 
place your hand on the others body when you can, stay there as long as you can without being on the way of the other
 
-toucher becomes an "insider"
 
try to enter into the vehicle
 
be in the inner space of your partner, following the moving machinery, be part of the traveling from inside
 
 
touch can happen, even weight shifts if happens but not neccesarly 
 
 
-integrate, combine all possibilities, use the different ways of relating to your partner, view, touch, be part
 
 
-no rolls, the two are participating every possibility at the same time, being a mover and being a follower
 
 
 
some small exercises
 
working on perception and alignment
 
 
standing in a circle
 
 
- touching eye, ear, shoulder, hip, knee, feet crossing the center line both side
 
engage, add a soft swing
 
 
- drawing figure eight
 
start around the solar plexus, let your hands trace the body back to the back side of the body then they go down on the back and the back side of the pelvis then they come around to the front and following the body wall they come up to the neck then they go around and following the head they return to the front and fall down to the starting place and it loops.
 
softening knees
 
play with rythms
 
 
- massage your face to refresh
 
 
- walk
 
bring your focus to the space, see the space, see others
 
go faster
 
keep looking and gradualy shake up your walk, easy bounce to walking-jogging 
 
free your arms and legs, light spine heavy head
 
take it into a bouncy dance 
 
eventualy bring it back to walking and to stillness..... 
 
 

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